


Someone I Almost Remember

by GettheSalt



Category: The Avengers (2012), Thor (2011), War Horse (2011)
Genre: Crossover, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-06-04
Updated: 2012-06-04
Packaged: 2017-11-06 20:46:56
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,084
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/423019
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/GettheSalt/pseuds/GettheSalt
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This idea came to me due to <a href="http://vforvet.tumblr.com/post/20223545127/au-in-which-loki-fell-into-midgard-and-lost-his">this gifset</a> on Tumblr, created by <a href="http://vforvet.tumblr.com">vforvet</a>. I cannot, therefore, take credit for her idea, only for this writing. The best summary, likewise, comes from her gifset caption:<br/>AU,in which Loki fell into Midgard and lost his memory,but some clips of his past just kept sneaking into his mind.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Someone I Almost Remember

Captain James Nicholls is an odd one, as far as Major Jamie Stewart is concerned. Not all the time, that is. Only sometimes. The man is a great officer, good with the men, with a sound military mind that compliments his already admirable personality. There are times, though, when Stewart could almost say he sees another person in Nicholls. The captain gets an oddly haunted look on his face, sinks into an almost trance-like state, like he’s trying to remember or is remembering something from a very long time ago.

But that only seldom happens. If the times Stewart has found Nicholls looking more in thought than usual have begun to become more frequent as they ship across the channel, he tries not to make note of it. For but that one oddity, Nicholls is a great asset to Britain’s army, not a commodity to be willingly squandered.  


The same evening that Stewart came upon Nicholls sketching Joey, the thoroughbred stallion he’d bought back in England, he returns to find the Captain in that odd, faraway state again. He’s sitting almost rigid in his seat, hand moving with strange sure brushes over the sketching paper, eyes stuck on the form slowly taking shape under his ministrations. The Major is a little perplexed at what he sees when he leans over Nicholls’ shoulder; a man’s face, rugged, quite handsome, crowded strokes indicating a beard or in the least, notable stubble, and long fair seeming hair (at least, that seems its hue from what Nicholls has done to give it body and shadow). Though the pencil still moves, Stewart can make out that the man is clad in some kind of regal guard – battle armour – and encumbered by a long, windblown cape. Mainly, the fellow looks like a hero from a fairytale. It is a beautiful sketch, and Stewart clears his throat to say as much without thinking; without accounting for the otherworldly air his brother-in-arms has been giving off. It’s to his benefit, he is acutely aware, that Nicholls does no more than stir and seemingly slip back into his own skin. For a charged second, he had felt himself bridging on the edge of danger. Now, Nicholls only blinks back at him and smiles, looking just slightly weary.

“You’ll have to forgive me, Jamie, I was a great many miles away from myself.”

Stewart chooses to simply go along and nod. “That you were, my friend,” he gestures to the drawing that so caused him to break the other’s revelry. “What are you drawing now?” Nicholls turns back to the page and blinks, frown lines appearing in his profile as Stewart looks on. It is plainly evident, even as he takes up the pencil again and continues to darken the lines of the sketch, that Nicholls carries no recollection of doing the work, in, in the very least, not as much as one expects an artist should. The look of confusion gradually softens, and Nicholls smiles, almost fondly, looking over the subject of his sketch. “Just someone who keeps showing up in my dreams. Someone… I almost remember.”

Stewart nods. “Well, it’s a fine drawing,” and then, because he has to lessen his own discomfort, “Did you finish those sketches of Joey, then?” Nicholls’ instant distraction is something of a godsend.

*

On the day of their charge into the German camp, Nicholls is apprehensive. It makes logical sense. They’ve all heard the reports from others regarding the Germans. They certainly are not going to be charging a group of toddling children with wooden swords, and they know that. Major Stewart seems confident in what the scout has told them, seems set in his plan and assured that the Germans will not see them coming. He is stone solid assured, it could be gleaned, that the attack will go off – mostly – without a hitch of which to speak. His cocksure attitude brings an almost familiar face to mind; smile as bright as the sun and a laugh that booms like the relentless thunder of a summer storm. The face is gone almost as quickly as it came upon him, retreated back to his subconscious, no doubt, but the knowing sensation lingers. Nicholls runs his hands over the velvet flanks of Joey’s broad neck, feeling the horse’s muscles bunching and tensing under his palms. The horse is just as incensed as he is, antsy and ready for action. The sooner he is given to run free, the better, even if it is in charge towards an encampment of Germans. Joey has taken well to Nicholls, he’s found, despite his boy, Albert’s, protests that the horse would listen to none but he. Then again, Nicholls has always felt a kind of closeness and kinship to horses in particular.

Not long after, seated in Joey’s saddle amid the tall grass, Nicholls’ finds himself regretting the wish for action. Only a little, but something heavy is settling on his shoulders, forcing its way into his ears in a harsh ringing, and curling down in his stomach, acidic and warning. Joey is still beneath him, and it’s strange that the horse is suddenly so calm, while he himself is only in such a state on the outside. Major Stewart ahead is still, well, piss and vinegar and enough surety for ten men. There’s a reason he’s a Major, though Nicholls still harbours quiet doubts about the relative chances of success of this particular plan. Nevertheless, he draws his sword when he’s told, tightens his grip on Joey’s reins, and digs his heels in ever so slightly to urge the horse forward. Around them, dozens upon dozens of men on horses, in the service of Britain and their King, set into motion, the grass setting to whispers as it parts and brushes over warm flanks and newly shined leather boots.

The horses walk, forcing their pace along at their riders’ behest until they’ve broken out into a full gallop. The sound of hooves hitting the dirt is nothing short of thunderous, and Joey is not the least of those adding to the cacophony. Nicholls can hear the horse’s breath, steady and strong, rushing through his nostrils and out through his mouth, tombstone teeth clicking on the bit in his mouth. Joey is, unsurprisingly, his whole grounding world as their charge bursts free of the long grass and the Germans see the full force bearing down on them.

It would almost be comical if it wasn’t war. The shock and disbelief painted on their faces before they turn and run for cover, or turn and flee for safety looks like something from another world – something from the stage. Actors in a comedy, not soldiers in a war.

Maybe it is that disconnection that allows Nicholls to push Joey forward, to crash through tents and chase after men – boys, the God’s honest truth is that they’re little more than boys – to cut them down. Each enemy down is a small victory for Britain, a tiny stepping stool for the Entente powers. The Germans are fleeing the camp, heads down as they break for the tree line, and the cavalry’s got them on the run now.

Joey breaks loose of the camp and Nicholls is firm to his back, urging the horse forward. Maybe this wasn’t such a foolhardy plan, maybe they have this one in the proverbial bag, one small victory in a French field.

The first rapport of machine gun fire that breaks through his optimistic glow brings him crashing back to earth with a sudden overwhelming clarity. This is war, and he is human, just as they, and no thick uniform coat is going to protect him from a bullet. No steel sword is going to protect him from what he is willingly charging into, with men on either side. Nor is it going to protect Joey.

Strangely, as they near the trees, and his heart takes up residence in his throat, and he learns what it means to be deaf, that is one of the final thoughts that crosses his mind.

Then all thought is redundant, is without rhyme or reason.

His chest is burning and his shoulder feels like the tendons keeping his arm useful have been severed. His hand spasms once, twice, and the reins slip from his grip. He’s falling, sliding sideways off Joey, his foot wrenching in the stirrup. The pain that shoots up his leg from what is now probably a damaged ankle is almost unnoticeable, but he notices. It adds injury to injury and he notices. Flat on his back in the trampled grass, staring up at the sky, he notices.

When the blood starts to build in his throat, when it begins to form in a froth over his lips, dribbling in a sloppy mess over his chin, Nicholls accepts that this is the end. He feels a heavy, warm hand come down on his eyes, closing them, and he knows the gesture enough to understand that he’s on the brink of being gone from this world for good.

He hopes his mother doesn’t mourn too gravely, and that the loss of him does not undo her, such a strong woman, even in these times. He regrets he didn’t think to write her one last letter before they set out for the long grass. He would have liked to say goodbye.

And yet, when the darkness settles, the face that fills his mind’s eye is framed in blonde hair, dusted with thick golden stubble edging on a beard, and the eyes that look upon him are as blue as the sky he watched as he died. It is not the face of his mother, but it is the face of someone he almost remembers.

*

When Nicholls opens his eyes again, he is acutely aware of who he is, and who he is not.

He most certainly is not Captain James Nicholls, a young military man from Britain. He is not a fair-haired artist in the thick of a great war among nations. He is not dying for king and country. He is not astride the muscular back of a thoroughbred named Joey, rushing the enemy.

What he is, well, that truth is far greater than the life he’d lived when he fell to Midgard. A god, a son of Odin (no, that is untrue, a fact only in adoption), a sorcerer, one of the greatest minds in the nine realms.

Who he is, is Loki.

It’s a name that is being muttered against his hair as he is crushed in an embrace that smells of leather and steel and sweat, a smell he’s known, intimately, his entire life. There is another, gentler hand, pushing his hair back, and the scent of rose and amber slips through under the leather. There is a softer humming, saying his name only once, the gentle fingers threading through his hair presence enough.

When he opens his eyes, the first thing he sees, past the armoured shoulder and the loosened honey curls, is an old man. Regardless of the unquestionable strength he holds, he is an old man who stands firm and apart, but whose face speaks volumes of a tale long untold that needs escape now. The hatred and the hurt burns in his belly and he bares his teeth, but the arms around him squeeze tighter, and the utterance against his throat brings him to still.

“Brother, please.”

Loki meets Frigga’s eyes. Sees her truths there, her unbending love of him as her son, no matter what truths and tales Odin, still silent and steps apart, still has great need to impart. She smiles, eyes alight with a thin sheen of tears, and he relaxes in his brother’s arms.

Thor takes this as all too welcome, crushing him even more in his embrace, and the wetness that Loki feels through the thin fabric of his shirt belies the unimaginable truth. Thor, the mighty Thor, golden boy, Loki’s better in everyone else’s eyes, cries. Cries because of him. Not his actions, but his solely missed presence.

Loki takes a second to let that sink in, to try to start processing it, and brings his own arms up to curl around his brother’s tremendous frame. For now, this is enough.

He wonders how many years Thor lived without him, while he went through his borrowed life on Midgard, Thor existing only as someone that he almost remembered.

He finds himself inexplicably hoping that it was not too many.


End file.
